click here to win the movie on Blu-Ray). Here are 5 must-see French films...
5. The Wages of Fear
Henri-Georges Clouzot was frequently cited as "the French Alfred Hitchcock", and is it really any surprise when he directs something as tripwire-tense as the 1953 suspense classic The Wages of Fear? The story involves a South American oil fire threatening to demolish everything in its path, with the only thing possible of stopping it being a blast of nitroglycerine. Four lower-class labourers ride the sensitive material over miles of bumpy road to the site of demolition, their fraught journey a metaphor for the hegemony held over the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Among the most nerve-racking films ever made - French or otherwise - Wages holds up extremely well on a re-visit, positively dripping in nail-biting tension and hauntingly, even hilariously nihilistic right to its final frame.
